This past week was spent in Italy on the yearly Breuer Family Ski Holiday. And unfortunately, this is my attempt at combining two seeming less different stories into one blog. My apologies for the ADHD; after this past busy season, the brain is officially fried.
To clarify, the family ski holiday involves cross country skiing, not downhill skiing, so it was not exactly a relaxing, laid back trip…especially since the extent of my exercise for the previous 8 weeks consisted only of sitting in my chair and walking to the office fridge for a diet coke. To make things even worse, I was cross country skiing with the Crazy Breuer Family.
To most, or at least me, a 5km run would be sufficient exercise for the week. And while skiing is slightly easier in theory, it is still pretty impressive. So I was quite proud of myself for skiing the “easy” loop of 5km not just once, but every day of the vacation. However in comparison, I was the slacker in the group. Martin and his family, including his 70 year old mom, all completed at least 2 loops of the harder and longer 11km version each morning which included a monster hill and baby monster hill. And each afternoon, instead of heading to bed for a much needed nap, which is what I did every day, they would all go out and complete an additional loop that afternoon fueled only by their lunches of cake, strudel and coffee.
Thankfully Martin and his family acknowledge the fact that they are a bit extreme (I was beginning to think that all German’s were like this) and jokingly they refer to themselves as the Crazy Breuer Family – as Martin so delicately put it “most people think you should push yourself to their limits every once in a while; the Breuer’s think it is good to puke over that limit.” (On a side note – on the drive back to Germany Martin’s dad was able to point out the various, daunting mountain peaks in the distance that the family had previously climbed.)
And now on to the second story – although I am sure you can already guess where this one is heading – yes, it involves naked Europeans…
For better or worse, the idea of travelling to Europe no longer has the same butterflies-in-the-stomach, must-prepare-for-weeks effect on me. Maybe it has something to do with the 5 trips I took there in 2010 alone. Instead, flying to Europe provides me a level of comfort in a vacation, similar to heading to the Lake or SLO. So when I told people I was heading to Italy for the family ski holiday, I countered their amazed and excited responses with a casual “yeah, it should be great but it really isn’t that different than going skiing in Tahoe” And to some extent that is correct – I mean it is really just a small ski town with like minded people all out enjoying the snow. However everything is starkly different once the skiing is over and you go to sooth your muscles in the hot tub and/or spa. Stark naked that is…Italy is quite different from Tahoe given the number of naked Europeans running around the spa and in the saunas. If my American accent and shoes didn’t give me away while skiing and during the meals, my black bikini definitely identified me as an American during the spa sessions. Gotta love my modest, if not prude American upbringing as compared to the European nakedness!
